Posted on 12/09/2016 1:47:58 PM PST by BenLurkin
To many, theirs was an odd pairing.
As John himself wrote: “We practically grew up in the same playpen. We never knew a time when we didn’t know each other.” (Annie says they were 2 years old when they met.)
But they were different. John was athletic and outgoing while Annie barely spoke, not because she didn’t have anything to say, but because when she did, people often assumed she was either deaf or mentally deficient.
For most of her life, Annie was afflicted with an 85 percent stutter, meaning she would become “hung up on 85 percent of the words she tried to speak, which was a severe handicap,” as John put it.
Those years must have been torture for Annie.
Some of the inconveniences might seem small. John recalled them:
For Annie, stuttering meant not being able to take a taxi because she would have to write out the address and give it to the driver because she couldn’t get the words out. It would be too embarrassing to try to talk about where she wanted to go. Going to the store is a tremendously difficult and frustrating experience when you can’t find what you want and can’t ask the clerk because you are too embarrassed of your stutter.
Others were large. As The Post reported, once her daughter stepped on a nail. As blood gushed out, Annie couldn’t speak well enough to call 911. Instead, she found a neighbor to make the call for her.
She spent the early years of their marriage avoiding the spotlight. While John seemed to enjoy the television cameras, he clearly cared more for her privacy.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Yep. Me too.
Glenn’s done a lot of remarkable things, and I respect that. But the guy’s judgement was imperfect.
You mention one thing... defense of the Clintons.
Here’s another: He was one of the Keating Five (along with John McCain and... wait for it... Alan Greenspan), who defended the representation of Charles Keating, head of an Arizona bank that was involved in shady dealings and folded during the banking crisis that took place around 1990. That was a bad call.
No, Glenn only got two launches—Mercury 6 and the space shuttle mission that he sold his soul for. He flew his famed Mercury mission in 1962. By 1964, his co-workers were ready to kill him. NASA sorta kinda softly fired him in 1964 by telling him, “Your psychological profile shows that your personality is best suited to public life.” The writing was on the wall. He could hang around a be an ‘astronaut’ on the payroll and work some collateral duties but he’s not getting another spaceflight. With Glenn’s ego, there’s no way he would do that and NASA knew it. Buh-bye.
He did well on a Mercury flight when he went by himself into space but he was not a team player and wanted everything his way. When he tried to enforce his idea of morality on everybody else, that’s when it got ugly. A few of John’s fellow astronauts nearly came to blows with him and refused to work with him in any capacity. The little yelling match that they showed in the movie The Right Stuff was nothing. John always functioned well in the limelight. He was a good-looking all-American boy who could turn on the charm. But when things went bad at NASA, they went downhill fast. In the 2 years after John’s orbital flight, he was still a hero to the public and NASA is very PR-driven. That’s why NASA very nicely said, “We love you, John, as does America, but you need to go do something else now,” as they nudged him out the door.
The thing with John Glenn is that he was always a politician first and he knew how to get himself in with well-placed people. When he got to meet John and Jackie Kennedy after his Friendship 7 flight, he was a real charmer with them and was a family friend for the rest of his life. Getting in with the Kennedys is how he got the skids greased for getting into government and eventually becoming a senator. Ole John knew how to work it. Later on it was the Clintons, that’s how he got his shuttle ride. That whole thing disgusts me beyond belief.
“Gladiolas!”
“You tell them that Astronaut John Glenn told you to say that!”
How was she supposed to “tell” them anything? The article says she couldn’t even dial 911. Of course, if she had, nobody would have answered since 911 wasn’t in operation at that time. Come to think of it, how did she tell John that LBJ was there?
I never could understand how a Marine fighter pilot could be a democrat. I don’t understand how anyone in the military can be a democrat.
And he defended Clinton so he could go up on the shuttle and study the effects of zero gravity on old people. Has any other old people taken advantage of John’s “study” and gone to outer space?
The “official” reason Glenn didn’t go up again in the early days was he was a hero and Kennedy was afraid he might get killed.
I think John Glenn’s many positives in life greatly outweigh his negatives. His record of fighting in two major Wars in and of itself is enough for Hero in my book. Astronaut was frosting on the cake. I just can’t let his few mortal flaws obscure a record of service to his country and to space exploration. In many ways, including his long marriage to his wife, he was a fine man.
I know a couple of veteran democrats. Two that I am thinking of a very left wing. They consider themselves patriots and I don’t doubt their love of country. They are definitely economic socialists. To them Uncle Sammy knows best!
I didn’t know that, wow!
I knew that Glenn was hated by his fellow astronauts from various autobiographical accounts. I don’t think they were just jealous bitter people, they went a lot farther in the space program that John Glenn. The only reason anybody knows his name is that his ONE flight was a big milestone at the infancy of the program (he was the 3rd guy to go up in the history of the US space program). I say one flight because the shuttle doesn’t count, Glenn was not a qualified astronaut, he was a passenger like Jake Garn and Bill Nelson. Makes me sick.
I greatly admire John Glenn for what he did as a fighter pilot, test pilot, and Mercury 6. Everything else sucks.
It is pretty sad and really sad the way people treat others who stutter. I have a dear friend, a brilliant engineer, who stutters. He has never gotten the credit he is due because of it. People think him either ignorant or annoying. He can be annoying but he is worth the trouble and time. I have stood up for him in all respects and always will because first and foremost he has been and will forever be my friend.
Agreed. The hero worship is off the charts.
I didn’t grow up with astronaut Glenn.
His public face for me was of a democrat politician that protected the Clintons during China-gate and won himself a seat as political ballast on a shuttle bumping that seat from a current astronaut of the time.
I don’t admire what he became in the second half of his life. Technological transfer to Chi-coms for donations and defending that is repugnant. Stealing a seat from a young deserving astronaut is also repugnant.
I know we didn’t have it in 1974.
Sorry...can't accept that.It's just another way of saying "mistakes were made" (remember *that* little gem?).Glenn put Party before country....BIG TIME! And just as Dirty Harry having been asked if he felt remorse over having lied about Romney's taxes his response was "well,he didn't win,did he?"...Glenn too failed to express the slightest regret or remorse for having defended those two crooks.
Party over country is absolutely unforgivable in my book.
One of Hank Ballard’s Midnighters stuttered horribly, but could SING like a DREAM!!!! Always thought it was VERY interesting that he could do that!
You say “many ways”. I’m going to quibble with you on that and say “most ways”.
I think his ROOT problem in politics was that he always put party first and not the country as a whole. This led to supporting the #1 Criminal Family of all time.
About forty years ago I was amazed when my wife told me about the City of Torrance, California having the 911 system when she was a child in the 1950’s. I was raised in Long Beach. Not that far from Torrance, but never heard of 911 until much later. Apparently it was established nationwide in 1968.
Apparently 911 was around in various forms prior to it becoming a national familiarity.
Yes. Pompous asses bother me to no end.
We pray for one last landing
On the globe that gave us birth;
Let us rest our eyes on the fleecy skies
And the cool, green hills of Earth.
-Robert A. Heinlein
“Later on it was the Clintons, that’s how he got his shuttle ride. That whole thing disgusts me beyond belief.”
IIRC there was something on FR years ago about Glenn shatting himself on the space shuttle launch. Granted, the guy was 77 years old at the time...
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